Office Struggles
by Stargazer at Moonlight
Summary: Five times that Jazz took Prowl out of his office and one time that he did not.
1. Snuggles Required

Jazz stormed though the entryway for the tactical division of the Autobot army, his expression _daring_ anyone to try and stop him. None of them would after the last time that someone had attempted to halt his progress towards his goal. It also helped that, almost every time he did this, he had the backing of the Chief Medical Officer and his Prime. The former held more weight with everyone on base, so no one dared to even step in his way.

The door to his destination did not open to any of the codes he tried – including the Prime's, which he should not have known. That brought a growl from his vocalizer as he pulled a cable from his wrist joint and ripped the plate covering the locking mechanism's internals so he could plug in and force the door to open. Mere kliks later saw that taking place and the angry saboteur stalking into the office of his closest friend – though the relationship was rather difficult to define at that time as it had moved beyond mere friendship but had not taken that last step into lovers.

"Do ya know how long ya've been in 'ere?" he demanded, moving around the overburdened desk to pull the tactician from his workload. He spun the chair that his partner's perfect black aft was seemingly glued to and tore the infernal data pad from white hands, tossing it on the desk.

Dim gold optics hazily followed the progress slowly before Jazz grasped his chin and jerked that gaze back to him. "Well? Do ya?"

"Too long," the tactician murmured, slowly moving to go back to work. The motion was abruptly aborted as the other black and white jerked him back around.

"Slaggin' right! Now get ya aft outta that chair and in a berth!"

"Don't want to," he protested, attempting to go back to work again. "Berth isn't right. No warm frame and music."

That stopped Jazz cold for a moment as the knowledge slowly sunk in. With a small, rueful smile, he pulled Prowl's chair around again and gathered a weakly resisting frame to him. "If Ah'd known ya weren't gettin' yer snugglin' quota in, Ah wouldn'ta been so mad, Prowler." He picked the now limp and fitfully purring mech up, wrapping white arms around his neck and lifting the tactician up before quickly positioning white thighs on his hips. His own arms came around to support aft and doorwings.

"Let's get ya ta berth, ya stubborn kitten," he murmured, nuzzling the edge of a ruby chevron before moving out of the still open door to the tactician's office, heading towards his room so that he would be able to lock everyone out. "Ah'ma promise ya snuggles for the next orn straight."

Golden optics lit slowly, looking just past the saboteur's shoulder tiredly, a purr still rumbling from his chassis to signal his contentment. His gaze caught on the mess of his lock. "Next time, just use your own code. Grapple is sick of fixing that lock."


	2. Much Needed Sustenance

His tanks pinged him for the seventh time that orn, a reminder he dismissed with barely a thought and no regard for what his systems were trying to tell him. Nothing was important outside of his calculations at the moment as he designed a mission that required the expertise of the Head of Special Operations – a mech that he was not going to risk any more than he absolutely had to. He sighed again, raising a hand to massage the center piece of his chevron to try and take some of his stress away unsuccessfully. If only he could give the saboteur Mirage's cloaking device and his own training in energy blades, it would be a much quicker and less risky mission. The length of time he was going to have to spend in the enemy base was what was making the mission so risky.

If only he had not been so good with tactics at the beginning of the war, he would be able to take the mission himself. He had better odds than Jazz did at that point in time, but asking Prime was absolutely out of the question. His request would be denied before he was even able to finish his argument. Apparently a tactician was too valuable to risk, even if he had all of the qualifications of a top ranked infiltrator and saboteur, though they were not kept up to date under his own designation. It was unlikely that even Jazz would know of his other identity – Barricade – as the mech's personality was so divergent from his own.

The door opening drew his attention from the calculations he was running and he on-lined his optics to a sleek, bright visor right in front of his face.

"Well, 'ello Prowler. Ya back ta tha land o' tha not almos' stasis locked?"

"I am not almost stasis locked, Jazz," he protested, hand lifting to rub his chevron mount again as his doorwings perked in joy at having his significant other paying attention to him.

"When was tha last time ya refueled?" the saboteur asked, moving around the desk and tugging the unresisting Praxian to his feet. "An' take inta 'ccount how hard ya been workin' those processors o' yers."

He hummed for a long moment, running through his memories to figure out the answer to the question asked. "The last time I had a cube was the end of last orn and I was unable to finish it as Sideswipe needed to be disciplined before Ironhide decided on appropriate punishment himself. Taking into consideration how much I have been working on this plan, I should have refueled at the beginning of this orn." He paused for a moment in speaking as he locked his door behind them. "What would you say if I would like to reactivate one of your agents for a mission?"

Jazz paused for a moment to contemplate his answer before speaking. "It would depend on the agent, Ah guess. Who ya got in mind?"

"Barricade."

The Head of Special Operations hummed as he searched his processors for the specs on that mech, sure that he had seen the file not that long ago and scanning it as they walked once he found it. "Ah'll have ta contact tha mech, but Ah don' see why not."

Their feet carried them out of the tactical division and to a nearby rec room on base – one reserved for the officers and for the mecha of the Tactical Department. They both needed energon and now they both had puzzles to solve. Jazz sighed. At least he had gotten the tactician out of his office and distracted him slightly even if he was unable to keep his mind entirely off of work. Hopefully that would change once the other black and white was off-duty.


	3. Punishment for Failure

If only he had paid more attention to the information that had been left on his desk for the planning, then the group of operatives that had been stationed in Tarn would have still been alive – not scattered to the far ends of the city by one of the most powerful bombs yet used in the war. It was entirely on his helm, their deactivations. He _lived_ for data and had totally disregarded that which would have _saved_ them as _insignificant_.

Gripping the sides of his helm, he rocked forward, resting his chevron mount on his desk. The metal edge was digging rather painfully into the sensitive metal of his frame, but it focused him on something other than the emotional pain he was in. As lost in his thoughts as he was, he never noticed the office door opening and a stealthy mech slipping in, taking the time to survey the scene before making his way over to the grieving tactician.

Smoothing black hands over a white helm, he turned his sonics on to their lowest setting and set about massaging neck cables and doorwing hinges, adding slight magnetic pulses to help with the spots of higher tension. "Shh, sweetspark, mah little kitten," he murmured, continuing to pet the other mech as soothingly as he was able to with the way he was sitting. "Let's get ya ta berth, hm? We'll both rest bettah there."

He took his time coaxing the doorwinger up and out of his chair and office, having cleared the main tactical room before he even entered the office. They made it as far as the entry room of Jazz's suite before Prowl broke down, collapsing on his knees and keening as he cried. The sight just broke the saboteur's spark with the sheer amount of feeling that was being expressed by the one mech that kept it together in front of everyone else. It also brought him down to his knees next to the tactician so that he could hold the slighter mech and attempt to sooth him before he could do himself damage that would take his self-repair longer than a single orn to repair. That was as long as he would be able to keep the other out of the general population of the base so that he would be able to recover his equilibrium before having to deal with the idiots they were surrounded with.


	4. Forced Socialization

"Prowl!" he whined, pouting enough that the tactician refused to raise his gaze above those deliciously molded lips to avoid being sucked in by what he knew would be the most spark wrenching optics a mech could possibly pull off. "Please?"

"No, Jazz. I am not going to one of Sideswipe's parties. He needs to learn how to appropriately plan one that does not result in all of my efforts on the duty shifts being worth scrap. I might as well toss the next couple of orns' rosters in the smelting pits as that is all they are now worth with the number of mecha that will be too hung over to show up for shifts and those that Ratchet will take off the roster for some injury or other." Turning a calculating gaze on the saboteur, he mused, "Of course, you could always teach him how to throw one properly and I will quite willingly come down for a cube of high grade."

The Polyhexian pouted further, almost breaking Prowl's resolve. "Not even for a little bit?"

He hummed for a long moment. "Twenty kliks and no high grade."

"Half a joor and two cubes."

"A quarter joor and a cube back in your quarters."

A bright grin lit up Jazz's face and he leaned across the desk to kiss his date. "Awesome! Ah'll even try ta get Sideswipe ta listen 'bout tha party plannin'!" Gripping a white hand, he maneuvered the doorwinger out from behind his desk. "Now ya just gotta get polished up!"

Prowl just rolled his optics as he allowed himself to be dragged from his office for a detailing by the saboteur. He was actually looking forward to it and could not wait to see what the other would end up doing to his plating. Surprisingly, it was not Sunstreaker who was the former chassis painter of the faction; it was the black and white that was pulling him out the door and into the halls. Somehow he had conspired to keep up his profession even during the war, though few knew of his talents and even fewer ever sported his designs. He felt quite honored to be one of those few.


	5. Revealing Injuries

The plan had been finalized only orns before, though before Jazz had even contacted Barricade to ask if he would do the job in expectation of that happening. He had left only joors after receiving confirmation from the saboteur that his agent would accept the mission as he had been expecting, ostensibly on a political negotiation and recruiting mission. That was the excuse he had formulated anyway, though he _did_ have a negotiation he had just finished and recruits that most were unaware of that would be arriving the orn after he expected to have returned. Now that he had come back, he had no idea how to explain away the injuries he had sustained as he was not supposed to have been on a mission that could result in them.

Of all the injuries he had acquired, the only ones he had been unable to reach and mask were the wounds on his doorwings. He needed them repaired, but there was no one on base he would trust to not gossip about it or report it to either Ratchet or Prime – the new one – other than the one mech he was rather dreading seeing again because he had not informed him what he as truly doing when he had left. So caught up in his thoughts was he that the swishing of his door opening took a long moment to register in his processor.

"Slag it all, Prowl!" his visitor exclaimed after the door shut. "What in frag happened?"

His doorwings twitched upwards and his shoulders hunched as he recognized Jazz, trying to protect himself from the pain he knew was to come. When he spoke, he used the un-modulated tones of his Special Operations personality. "I miscalculated a couple'a times durin' tha course of the mission."

"_Barricade?_ What're ya doin' in Prowl's office?"

He finally looked up from his desk to display his red-visored face and tapped his now clawed fingers to draw attention to them. "We are one and the same, Jazz. My Sigma ability is changing my paint by tweaking settings for my armor. The visor and claws are just upgrades from my youngling vorns when they had been advantageous." He retracted the two features he had just mentioned before looking into the steely gaze of the mech that was both his subordinate and his superior.

The Polyhexian was frowning, but eventually sighed, gesturing for Prowl to join him. "Come on, Prowler. Ah'll get ya doorwings repaired an' then we're gonna have ourselves a nice long talk 'bout why ya didn't jus' tell mech 'bout dis little fact. Also wanna know how ya hid all'a this from meh. Could 'elp identify othah mecha that're infiltratin' tha 'Bots."

He sighed deeply in relief, posture falling back to what it had been before he was discovered. At least he had not reacted violently or broken off their developing relationship before hearing the full story. Moving around the desk, he held a hand out to the Head of Special Operations in expectation. "Should we make it look like something not out of the norm?"

A bright grin greeted his question. "Ya gotta tell meh how Ah missed ya bein' Spec Ops, kitten. Neveh noticed how ya always thinkin' 'bout keepin' e'rehthin' undah tha radar."


	6. Role Reversal

With a warning knock to the door in front of him, Prowl finished his hack on the lock and waited for the slab of metal to move aside for him to enter. It was a good thing that the Special Operations Division was rather deserted at that time as no one would take well to him doing this otherwise, no matter that Jazz had announced that Prowl was welcome there in any situation. After all, the information that the saboteur had given in relation to the reason he was allowed had nothing to do with him also being an operative so it would leave those in Jazz's team suspicious of him.

His greeting was a blaster pointed at his chest plates, something that never fazed him when it came to the mech he was confronting. "Come now, Jazz. You know that I am safe, that I will not attack you. I also know that I never would have made it into your office if you were not aware of whom I was."

The other black and white sighed deeply, exhausted after his last mission and the toll it had taken on his entire team physically. He himself was confined to desk duty until the brace on his leg and arm came off after new parts finished integrating. Then would come physical therapy and minute adjustments needed to make the limbs fully functional. His frame slumped as he relaxed and the blaster was laid down on his desk to signal his welcome to the tactician.

"Yeah, Prowler. Ya know meh pretteh well." A small, rather pathetic smile crossed his features before his helm dropped into his free hand and his visor retracted into his helm. "Ya come 'ere ta take meh ta Ratch?"

"No. I came here to take you back to your quarters," he stated as he crossed the room and crouched beside the chair the saboteur was seated in. It could not be comfortable with his braces because of the small degree of padding and the arms that restricted his movement, prompting Prowl to make a note to replace it with something more appropriate for the time being. "Would you like to go to berth with me?"

Red optics fixed on gold for a long moment before a tired grin crossed his lips. "Seems a little backward, don't it?" He reached out and caressed Prowl's face plates with soft strokes. "Ah'm gonna need some 'elp gettin' there."

"If you can stand, I can definitely get you there, sweet beat," he replied with a light grin.

As Jazz obeyed what he had requested, he watched with well-masked concern the stiff movements from a normally quite flexible mech. It was almost painful to see even though he knew that Jazz would be back to his normal self within a decaorn. Once the saboteur was standing, the tactician picked him up, supporting him at the knee joint and across his back. The move pulled a smile and short laugh from the other mech before he pressed a light kiss to neck cables.

"Just lock the door behind us so that I can get us to your room without having to worry about coming back, hm?"

"Sure thing, kitten!"


End file.
